by Nusrat Ara
-Indian administered Kashmir-

My heart sinks as I look at the collage, carried by almost all the local newspapers, of children standing before judges in the local court. Looking forlorn and lost, the children are handcuffed and accompanied by police officials.

The newspapers report that the children were booked on charges of stone pelting. They had been kept in the local police station for a week before coming before a magistrate who directed them to a juvenile home, recently opened due to an outcry by human rights groups and civil society.

by Nusrat Ara
-Indian-administered Kashmir-

As a little kid my elder brother and I spent most of our time at our maternal grandparent’s house. A room in the house held the fascination of all the children. It belonged to my uncle and the cause of our fascination hung obliquely across a wall.

by Nusrat Ara
-Indian-Administered Kashmir-

It is Sunday noon. I am standing outside the only functional cinema in all of Indian administered Kashmir.

Located in the city of Srinagar, the shabby Neelam Cinema sits quiet. It looks more like a war torn military post, with coils of razor wire and bunkers, than a cinema. A paramilitary guard looks out from a bunker above as we approach the tin door. “No film today,” he says. “Go back.”

• The Neelam Cinema, Srinagar, Kashmir. Photograph by Nusrat Ara. •

“I would ditch school to watch a movie. It was difficult at times to get a ticket from the counter. Mostly we had to rely on the black market,” said businessman Shameem Ahmad, 38, about the pre-insurgency days.

The guard lets us in only after we convince him we have to meet the manager.

Inside we learn that they have been waiting for a movie to arrive for three days. “We are getting it by this afternoon,” Muhammad Ayub, the projector operator tells us. The big poster for a film assures us that we are in the right place.

by Nusrat Ara
- Indian-administered Kashmir -

After the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) admitted to a major mistake in its 2007 report, which asserted the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035, skeptics and opponents alike went on the offensive, using the admission as proof that climate change is a fabrication. Though the 2035 deadline may no longer be valid, global warming is surely having an effect on the ground and activists are now faced with an even tougher challenge.

Climate change has affected nearly every country in the world, irrespective of the role it has played in polluting the environment. Lying in the lap of the great Himalayas, Kashmir is one such place, and we are already feeling its impact.

by Nusrat Ara
- Indian-administered Kashmir -

“Keep Guns Outside, Please.” The brightly-colored sign on the gates of She Hope Disability Centre is a reminder of Kashmir’s ongoing conflict.

Sami Wani, the young manager, smiles when asked about the instruction. "We have a military camp nearby. They would often drop by for friendly visits, obviously with arms and ammunition. The patients, especially children and women, would get scared"

Did he get the desired result? “They stopped coming,” he laughs.